turn itself inside out, shred itself like he’d tried to shred his hat.
What would Colton’s face look like if he learned Wes’s secret from ESPN? If he read about it online? If he saw pictures of Wes and Justin? What about Orlando and Art? What about Coach? The athletic trainers? What if everyone suddenly knew he was gay?
The stares. The accusations. The disbelief. The broken trust.
Everyone is counting on you.
It would shatter the team if they found out like that. Hell, it would shatter the team if they found out at all. He’d kept this from everyone his whole life, kept it from the guys he’d sweated and bled with, who he’d given all of himself to, day in and day out. Guys who’d traveled this path with him and were counting on him to help bring them the last few yards. Into the end zone. To glory.
And what would happen to Justin if Wes was outed? If he was named as the guy Wes loved? What would happen to his life? He imagined the jeers, the slurs, the hate. Hell, the online attacks he got when he fumbled a pass were brutal enough. What if Wes was outed? What if the world found out that what he wanted most wasn’t to catch that shovel pass and make a breakaway for the end zone or to snatch that fade from Colton in the back corner of the end zone and rack up another touchdown on the scoreboard, but that he wanted Justin? He wanted to be on his knees, Justin’s cock in his mouth, Justin’s hands gripping his skull? To be balls deep in Justin, kissing him until his toes curled, until Justin’s ankles crossed behind his back and Wes ran his palm down Justin’s smooth thigh, gripped his ass as he thrust in, and in, and in?
Wes could take the heat, the hate. Probably. Hopefully. He already knew the blistering tirades he got from the fumbles and the dropped passes, the missed downs, and he could extrapolate, in a fuzzy way, what that would sound like, look like, if the shouts and curses and death threats, the excoriations to choke on his own jock, drive himself off a bridge, quit the game and wrap his lips around his tailpipe were focused, instead, on how he wasn’t a man, he was a faggot, he deserved to die—
Again, he hurled, grabbing the garbage can and curling around it, his stomach screaming.
Once, when Wes was still in high school, a fan had stalked one of the university’s quarterbacks. He’d staked out the quarterback’s truck at the stadium and waited for him after practice, enraged at how he’d thrown two interceptions in the last game, had blown the lead in the third quarter. The game had been lost to his most hated team, the alma mater of his buddy, who went on to beat him in that week’s betting pool.
The fan got up in the quarterback’s face, screaming, bellowing, losing his fucking mind. The offensive line came out of the stadium a few minutes behind the quarterback, just in time to see the knife flash.
By the time the linemen got there, the quarterback was on the ground with two punctured lungs and an eviscerated belly bleeding all over the pavement, and his attacker was on the run. Three linemen turned the attacker into a smear on the asphalt, and the police nearly had to shovel his broken body into the ambulance when they finally arrived.
When the quarterback had doubled over, trying to protect himself, the blade had slid into his back and nicked his spine. Paralyzed him from the waist down. All that, because someone didn’t like the passes he’d thrown. Because he’d lost fifty bucks on a bet over beer and chicken wings.
What if someone came after Justin? What if Wes loving Justin put Justin’s life at risk?
They will turn your life upside down. Are you ready?
He might be able to say yes, but was it fair to Justin to turn his life upside down—or worse? Subject him to the capricious whims of football fans, the wild swings of poisonous love and vitriol? Subject him to violence?
What would happen to the man he loved?
Was he willing to risk Justin’s life to find out?
God, how selfish was he, even considering it? No, never. He could never, ever risk Justin’s life, not for football. Hell, he should quit today, march back into Coach’s office and tell him thanks but no thanks, he could take